


Ghosts

by OneTrueStudent



Series: The Gloaming [4]
Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 11:17:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6326899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneTrueStudent/pseuds/OneTrueStudent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another short piece in the same world as the Gloaming. This develops the same world of the Hollicar Drommon, the mountains of the Doon.</p>
<p>March 14 to 22, 2016.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts

The problem with believing in ghosts when ghosts aren't real is that when Wilkins burst from the deserted house with a dead-white face, sweating in the freezing air, Artissan had to pretend to believe him when he said nothing happened.

"You sure?" she asked, in a dry, almost bored tone. 

Wilkins looked side to side with wild eyes. "Nothing."

"Right."

Astissan negligently shrugged, like she could pursue the matter but didn't care enough to. Merrun was likewise unconcerned. Some highlanders from deep in the Doon might flit from superstition to superstition but not them. Artissan and Merrun were military attaches to the big city of Ashirak. They had seen the world. They knew how things worked. They did not believe in ghosts at all.

"But if something had happened-" began Merrun.

"It didn't," snapped the pale man, and he stomped over to the water point to flush his head and neck. 

The two from the mountains nodded to each other with jaded expressions. They then pointedly turned their backs on each other and went about their business.

The rest of the empty town held mostly trees and merits, small fat mammals that were thicker bodied than stoats. The trees were white fir and three sisters that had moved down the valley walls, taking the high pastures first and advancing between the houses. Three houses to the north were holed by confers coming through the walls, and one white fir had seemingly sprouted on the roof, brought it down when it grew too big, and had now a brick house-pot around its trunk. A pack of merits hissed and ran when Artissan investigated.

"Pots," she said. "No bones, no weapons, but pots. Two wooden plates." She held up some small rotten bits of wood. "I bet these were forks."

"For how much?" demanded Narn before she finished talking.

She didn't answer, just threw the sticks back and kept searching. He went off looking in a different direction.

"More pots!" yelled Merrun from a different house. "Lots of them. There's a sand stove here too. I bet this was a tinker's house."

The ground heated fast as the sun was almost directly overhead, and the winds that rushed off the peaks were welcomingly chill. The Tin Valley was a box canyon with only one way in, a winding grey road of rock swept clear of dirt by years of feet. No one had passed it in years, leaving grasses to try to grow in the pits between the stones with little success. Two streams collected snowmelt and ran fat in the summer. They fed a black-hearted pond. Other than the merits and wind-pushed branches, not much moved in the valley. Come sunset it would be alive with fireflies now hiding. 

"Any corpses?" yelled Lord Tremaine. His voice carried through the empty village but raised no echoes from the mountains, like the trees ate his words. "Bones? Weapons?"

"I got bones and corpses, but I think this was the butcher's place," called back Narn. 

Artissan fell in with Lord Tremaine as he trotted towards Narn's voice, and Merrun ignored them, still sifting through the forest-taken house.

Artissan and Merrun both wore many layers of fine wool, sheep hair on the outside with soft white rabbit wool underneath their coats and pants. Neither of them was much above five feet tall, but they were powerfully built. Brown and grey coats gave them thick outer layers that made Merrun look grim and strong while hiding Artissan's curves. She pointedly wore her hair long and braided with ribbons. Merrun had a white hawk sewn onto his cuffs and collar, while Artissan wore grey boars around her belt with more on the sides of her hood. 

Narn, Wilkins, and Tremaine wore cotton with wool jackets, and they froze at night. Their bright red cloaks did little for them. Each of the three lowlanders carried a sword, and boots with a sharp heel for riding. Narn and Wilkins wore mail. They were all taller than the two attaches, Tremaine being a head and shoulders taller than Artissan, and they had fast eyes. The lowlanders were always looking around, even when they talked. They checked distant peaks, nearby trees, and sometimes even straight up into the sky. None of them wore totems, save debatably the red cloak. 

Four tall stone smokehouses stood mostly intact behind Narn's butcher shop. Each was ringed six feet high by rotten firewood, bound together by penetrating roots into geometric wooden walls. White lily blossomed over and around. Tremaine paused by the smokehouses, and feeling Artissan's eyes on him, deliberately plucked a blossom. He pulled the stem out through the base and the pistol gathered a bead of honey dew. He ate it while Artissan watched.

"White lily," he judged.

She waited, but he ignored her and called to Narn. Narn's voice called back from inside the shop. Tremaine climbed in.

The butcher shop was one of the few full stone buildings. Most were brick over beam, but this one was formed of great flat stones, fitted intricately together in the old highland way. The outer wall was nearly a foot thick and would be brutally cold come winter. The front room was a rectangular storeroom with mostly intact roof of slate on wood. Narn was there, digging in the ground with his knife. 

"Cow skull," he said, holding one up. "Fifth I've found. Two bull skulls too. Some hocks, ribs."

"Anything human?" asked Tremaine.

Narn pulled up a rib almost three feet long. "Not even close."

Artissan shifted uncertainly on her feet. Narn kept grubbing in the dirt and turned over some sawn-off bone fragments. They'd been picked clean by beetles. 

"Is bone stew a thing?" asked Narn suddenly. "Bone stew? They eat that up here, right?"

"In lean times," said Artissan. "Probably not cows. Maybe yaks."

Narn didn't argue, but didn't change direction either. "These bones are all raw. None of them have been boiled."

"This is a store room. They wouldn't be."

"Skulls? What meat do you get out of skulls? And why would they store all that meat here to rot?" demanded Narn. He climbed to his feet with a hand on the wall, and slapped the dirt off his fingers. It dusted the bone pile like a thin snow. 

"Store room." Artissan shrugged. She was sick of defending every observation about the highlands. Obviously something was wrong, but highland society as a whole wasn't bound by one empty village.

"Have you gone further in?" asked Tremaine.

"No, milord."

Tremaine nodded and drew his short gladius, barely more than a big knife. He held it down by his right hip, blade forward, and walked sideways before the door leading further into scan the room beyond before crossing the threshold. Following his lead, Artissan drew her sword as well. Narn kept his knife. They walked in a narrow file without bunching up.

The room beyond was dark and empty. It must have been the main sleeping area, for two big beds crumbled against the walls, forming a walkway between. Narn said the butchering would be done outside, and only the meat stored within. The next room was the kitchen. A tree had taken root on the roof and fallen in, taking half the slate with it. Now a column of light fell full on the three sisters with its white needles glowing compared to the darkness. The floor of the kitchen was covered in silent needles. Narn felt compelled to press past the branches and count the branchings of the stem. In two places the main trunk split in the triads that gave the tree type its name. It formed a cone much more cylindrical than white fir.

"Pots here too," said Artissan. "Good steel. Rusted something fierce, but good steel."

"Pots, and a three sisters. Anyone got anything else?" asked Tremaine, leaning to peer back the way they came. The living room was a dark hole to the darker store room, and the doorway outside was an aisle of light beyond.

Narn shook his head, but Artissan asked for a moment. She rapped on the wall, moving side to side. Her knife-butt gave a flat, sharp click. Tremaine glanced at her, then looked at Narn and flicked his head to the side, indicating he should back her up. Narn shrugged nonplussed Tremaine scowled and flicked his head again, looking back the way they'd come. The living room was a cavern. As his eyes adjusted to the pillar of light through the kitchen roof, the living room seemed to sink into obscurity. Narn sighed and walked over to Artissan's side.

"The other side of this wall should be underground. In the old days, people sometimes built hidden rooms here. It will sound like a boom when you knock. Like flat thunder," explained Artissan.

"What for?" asked Narn, who made no move to help but didn't interfere.

"Stills, mostly. Most thanes tax brewing, so a private still is worth a steel penny. Of course the thane's men come looking every now and then, hence why they hide them. Most of the other houses are freestanding of brick, so if there was one, it would be-" 

Boom, boom, boom, went the wall, like distant thunder.

"Doesn't seem like a great place to hide it," said Tremaine, who had not taken his eyes from the way out.

"It's behind the oven, sir," said Artissan, rapping on the wall and reaching through the oven's mouth to gauge of the size. "The fire burns day and night. When that's the only source of heat and light inside, they don't let it go out."

"Then how to they get to the still?"

"There's probably a bit of trickery, or fake pipes-"

"Narn, break the wall. Find me this still," ordered Tremaine. He glanced just once at the inside of the kitchen before snapping his eyes back to the way they come. "Highlander, keep your eyes on that hole in the roof. Make sure no one comes in."

"Nobody here, sir," grumbled Artissan.

"That's the problem."

Narn was already ripping the wall apart. With a ladle as a pry bar he went to work on the chimney, then the oven itself. The catch was full of old ashes that poofed into the air and fell like a grey mist. Artissan looked uncomfortably at the defiled house, but Narn had the oven apart and was ripping the blocks out of the wall without her. She pursed her lips and checked the walls and hole in the roof. They had hours before sunset. Narn smashed a block of slate set to look like granite, and then wormed through the hole.

"There's a cavern back here, milord!" called Narn. His voice echoed twice, each from successively further distances. "Yes, a still, and also barrels, old hops, some barley, some- udders on a bull!"

"He found animals?" wondered Artissan even as Tremaine yelled, "Narn, what is it?"

Two violent thuds hit the wall.

"Udders on a bull?" asked Artissan again. 

Tremaine dove for the hole behind the oven and crawled into the wall, yelling, "Watch our way out!" to Artissan. She stared befuddled as his feet vanished. Then she put her back to the wall and waited.

"Bulls don't even have udders," she grumbled. The powerful highland woman looked uncomfortably between the hole in the wall with the ruins of the oven scattered before it. It looked nothing so much as a broken-toothed mouth, in front of a plate of leftovers. The way out was dark, but the sunlight beyond was so close. A cloud passed over the sky. First the column of light on the three sisters dimmed, and then the distant doorway.

Tremaine's head stuck out. "You didn't mention booby traps!" the young lord yelled.

Artissan stared at him. "Oh, be careful of those. They're there to deter anyone from stealing the booze."

"Nine cats in a sack," muttered Tremaine and vanished back into the hidden chamber.

 

Narn had both his legs broken. An array of rye bushels had been mounted on a false pedestal, and it had come smashing cross his shins, breaking both lower leg bones. He couldn't walk, could barely crawl, and everything out of his mouth was profanity. Tremaine dragged him out, and carried him into the grass-grown lane where Wilkins appeared. At the sight of Narn Wilkins went flat. He was smooth as a mirror. Before Narn knew what was happening, Wilkins had a wooden stick in the patient's mouth and Tremaine and Artissan holding him down. Narn didn't actually realize what was going on until the first leg was set.

He thrashed loose, punched Artissan in the face, and she had to fight him off while Wilkins splinted his leg. Narn tried to punch Tremaine in the throat when he got his other leg splinted. The officer was gagging and coughing when Narn's eyes rolled back in his head. He went limp.

"Twist and pop," said Wilkins blandly. He looked at Artissan. "Move your hand."

She did and bled angrily at him.

"Not broken. Blow a blood ball and tell me if you can breathe."

"Jackath."

"You'll be fine. Sir?"

"Feisty ass," muttered Tremaine, rubbing his neck. "I hope that hurt."

"Enough to knock him out. He'll be back in the time it takes to milk a cow. They're rarely out long." Wilkins shrugged.

Tremaine looked between unconscious Narn and bleeding Artissan, but voiced no thoughts. Instead he looked around for Merrun.

"Where's the other one?"

After some calling, Merrun appeared, and he looked worried. Narn woke up and wasn't happy about it. There was nothing to be done for the injured party, so they focused on Merrun.

"Sir, I found something," said the highlander who could breathe easily through his nose. He showed them a handful of small steel rings, in varying stages of corrosion. Each one was about as big around as a quail's egg, shaped like a very short cylinder save a inner ring that extended inwards from the outer ring. It was perhaps the length of a skin fold on a man's knuckle, and the cylinder was half the length of a fingernail. Each was regularly divoted around outside.

Tremaine looked without recognizing them. "What are they?" he asked.

"Coil belts, sir. Wodai coins have a steel ring about the outside so the rims can't be shaved. The gold or silver inside is cast to the ring. That way you can tell if your money's been lightened," said Merrun. 

"So someone melted the gold or silver out of a pile of coinage?" said Tremaine. He picked one up, rotated it in his fingers, and gave it back.

"Sir, we found piles of steel pots in every house. Two houses had metal utensils in the kitchen. I found knives and hammers in the stithy. These were in the biggest house, that one by the river. It has a warehouse with fine locks, all steel. And the metal from outside the coins, but no gold or silver." Merrun pointed at the biggest house in the village, a small mansion with eight chimneys. Though it was on the far side of the lane, they could see a recessed small door by the main one and a detached kitchen. 

Tremaine took the coin belt back. He seemed to weigh it in his hand, then took out a couple brass pennies and a silver one. He compared between the lots. "That's a large coin."

"Wodai high crown, sir. When Wodai and Ashirak agreed to standardize their coinage, Wodai wanted the highest value coin to be theirs, but Ashirak already made one worth one and a half Wodai crowns. So Wodai started minting high crowns, worth twice a Ashirai crown, so their crown was worth more. They call them high crowns."

Tremaine put his money away, and Artissan noticed his wallet was nearly empty. The Warmark picked up a fist full of the steel rings and examined them. "They look smashed. Someone must had taken the gold out with chisels."

"I thought so, sir, but there's no bits inside. I checked. There isn't any silver or gold sticking to the inside, which you'd expect with chisels."

Tremaine nodded. "You searched the merchant's house?"

"Closely. Lots of steel. Lots of wood, and bits of rotting cloth. No gold or silver."

The lord thought hard. "You checked the stithy? Were all the tools there? Not just the hammers, but files and rasps?"

"I certainly saw some in a pile," said Merrun.

"A good set of blacksmith's tools is worth a crown, at least a few silvers. Even silver high crowns. They're not that much heavier either," he mused. "Bah. I hate mysteries. We have no time. Your compatriot didn't think to mention any traps, and now we have to get Narn off this mountain. Rally up the horses. Wilkins, go with him."

With another scathing look at Artissan, the lord turned to Narn who was now laying still, trying to summon stoicism. He was curt but very polite.

 

This high in the Doon the temperature dropped with the sun. It was warm until the sun hit the soaring mountains, but as the shadows lengthened they brought the cold down from the peaks. Narn couldn't ride or walk, so they tied mules together to form a sling. The mules didn't mind much. Wilkins wouldn't let them ride faster than a walk, so they trotted placidly down the village road toward Thane Masseron's keep. The Tin Valley was only ten miles uphill of the keep, but it was long after nightfall when they arrived.

Before arriving, Narn called in a favor. "Don't tell anyone about this," he asked, having stopped the donkeys a mile from the keep. Stars danced around the moon, and meteors burned overhead. Narn had grabbed Wilkins by the arm.

"Tell anyone what?" asked Wilkins.

"That it was a barrel that got me."

Tremaine walked over, and looked between Narn's face and broken legs. "Who cares?"

"Sir. Please. Don't tell."

"Then tell them what?"

"Say a ghost did it."

Tremaine rubbed his eyes. "I'm not going to tell anyone a ghost broke your legs."

"Sir, a dead tree in the forest. It fell on me. Sir, I beg you."

"What possible difference- you don't want the highlanders to know a years old trap got you," said Tremaine, and his voice dropped through understanding into flat contempt. 

"We don't need to let them know the warriors of the Red Guard get taken out by traps!"

Tremaine could not have been less interested. He sighed and rolled his eyes like he would find meaning back there. Instead he looked to the other three members of the group. "Do you swear to mention nothing of this?" 

Wilkins didn't care and assented. Artissan said nothing, but she nodded as well, and Merrun matched her. 

Tremaine's expression of flat contempt spoke wonders of the requirements of command. "If anyone asks, say it is a Redguard matter, and not something to be discussed. Don't lie, but just don't speak. Otherwise tell the truth. There was no money, nor anything that remained of value. We found no people and no signs of violence. The hearthome seemed to have just packed up and moved. Narn's injuries are not associated with the disappearance, which is true. I'll report to Masseron."

He looked around again. Everyone repeated their general nods of assent. They trudged the rest of the way to Masseron's keep in the dark.

 

The keep was a stone box of uneven stories, being nearly four stories tall above the ground on the north side, eight on the left, and none of those floors matching up across the great soaring woodhall that ran the middle length of the keep. Its walls were four feet thick at ground level, being a foot of laid stone, two feet of fill earth mixed with straw, and another foot of laid stone. The combination was far warmer than the brutal stone of the butcher's shop in Tin Valley. In Masseron's grandfather's time, the keep had been burned out, and the interior had collapsed without breaching the walls. Everyone died, but the keep stood.

The keep's front mounted a fist of stone that struck up through the broad valley of the River Ibain. Four wide steps lead to the iron-banded main doors, thrown open to the night. Beyond the outer doors was a short, slot-ceilinged foyer. Another two banded doors lead to widdershins stairways. The foyer was lit well with torches. Beyond were partially cracked doors to the main hall, and noise and light from the party within spilled through the fortified entryway and down the stairs outside. Masseron had kept his hall awake until the lowlanders returned, and they were in a fine drunk. The thane's beer barrels were broached and pouring. Long tables ran parallel the length of the hall, seated with men on the outside and women in the middle. A ring had been cleared near the doorway for wrestling, and Masseron and his wife sat with their sons on the high dias, trying to keep the boys from fighting. 

Tremaine's party were greeted like heroes, and a dozen men leaped to carry Narn's stretcher. They jumped over each other in both offering help and demanding to know how he'd been injured. Tremaine greeted them in a long and flowery speech that didn't say anything, got Narn two mugs of stone beer and himself a glass of wheat white, and put off all other questions as he ascended the dias to the thane's family. 

Thane Masseron had a beard like a blonde arrowhead that ran from his ears to a fine point beneath the chin. He shaved the joinment between his beard and mustache, so the thick bar of hair on his bottom lip seemed to jump to the bar of hair under his nose. His wife hated it, and she'd lost that fight. In losing, she had reserved the right to cut the rest of his hair because Masseron tended to resemble a haystack. Thus above the ears he was close cropped and neat, and his magnificent beard reached the blue stag on his chest.

Lady Masseron Tilde, third cousin of Masseron's first sister by marriage, was a tall woman in three layers of a close dress. Her black hair was tied back in silver threads and gold, while her collar, sleeves, and sides were embroidered with blue stags and black falcons. The great black falcon of witchcraft covered her left breast. She had lost the fight against Masseron's beard and was losing the fight with his sons, even though neither of which was punching the other right exactly now. Tob, the smaller one, was sitting beside her on his own bench while Jrom sat on Thane Masseron's other side. The boys were looking at each other over their parents with flat, hostile expressions. 

Tremaine took the lay of the land and sat outside Jrom by the Thane.

The wrestlers, having paused to rest at the arrival, resumed their match and the partygoers put the dias out of their minds. Masseron leaned close to hear Tremaine, idly lifting Jrom off the bench and handing him to his mother. Tilde couldn't lift the squirming boy, so she had her husband put him down, threatened the child near to death, and made him sit beside his brother so she could listen to Tremaine as well. Masseron took her engraved chair in one hand and yanked it close, dragging her and the heavy seat across the stone while he bent his attention to Tremaine.

"Thane Masseron, I've come-" Grind! The chair squeaked and roared under the Thane's hand. Tremaine waited until Tilde was close enough for them to speak in low tones. The hall was an echo chamber with two score drunkards. "Thane Masseron, and Lady Tilde, I've come direct from Tin Valley."

He paused, expecting something, but they waved him to continue. The boys weren't fighting yet.

"The valley is empty. Clearly no one has lived there in several years. We found no bones, weapons, or signs of violence, and the trees have taken back the village. Two houses had trees take root on the rooves and have fallen in. Since no one would let a tree take root on top of a house while one was living in it, no one could have lived there in some time?"

"How tall are the trees?" asked Masseron.

Tremaine thought. "One my height, one half again as tall." He stood up so they could gauge his height.

"Three sisters, white fir, black fir?" asked Tilde.

"The shorter was three sisters, the other white fir." Tremaine resumed his seat.

"Four years, no less," she said. There was no room for uncertainty in her voice.

"We surveyed Tin Valley Winternacht, three years hence," said Masseron with equal confidence. "Three and a half years."

"That's too short. The shorter one might be three years, but the taller wouldn't grow that much in less than four," replied Lady Tilde. She sounded like she'd conceded something by going as low as four.

Masseron and Tilde locked eyes, but less a staring match than a subdued conflict of certainty. The thane looked away first. "Which houses?"

"The shorter one was in a stone house recessed into a hillside. My man Narn found bones like a butcher's shop inside. That tree hadn't crested the roofline yet. The taller one was in a brick house on the slopes, by the north side of town. The forest had come down around it."

"Midge the Butcher would never have let a tree grow on his roof, but the times work. I don't know the other house," said Masseron. He chewed his mustache.

"I'll ask around, see who lived there," said Lady Tilde, who started twitching while she looked at Masseron. She pulled herself away and glanced hard at the boys. They weren't exactly fighting, merely touching each other. When she looked at them they leaped apart.

"And no one's gone up there in three years, lord thane?" Tremaine asked Masseron. A cheer went up elsewhere, and Masseron and Tilde cheered instantly, both calling out of the sides of their mouths. Neither looked to the crowd. Tremaine did, and saw Wilkins helping a big man to his feet in the wrestling ring.

Masseron frowned cagily. "We do not go into another man's land. Nor do we lightly venture into a valley gone silent."

"It's very silent now. Good land. Someone should move in."

"We will let the spirits rest. There's plenty of land in the highlands. No reason to move into Tin Valley so soon, not if no one's buried," said Tilde. She allowed nothing. Tremaine didn't drop his eyes from her face, but in his peripheral vision the black falcon loomed large on her breast.

Tremaine drank deep instead of replying. His mug was four pieces of wood intricately joined with leather cords, those tightly enough to depress rings in the mug's sides. The wheat white beer was surprisingly light compared to the darker, heavier barley beer, or heaven forfend the distilled lightning of stone beer. Someone had tapped the earth's heart to brew that. Tremaine glanced over at Narn and saw his soldier was feeling no pain. Good. Tremaine drank again.

"What happened to your man?" asked Masseron.

"Red Guard affairs," replied Tremaine. He felt the edge of the red cloak he and Narn wore, the like of which hung behind Wilkins bench. "I assure you it matters not to why Tin Valley lays empty, but I cannot speak of it. Why is it called Tin Valley, lord thane?"

"There used to be a tin mine there, a good one, in my grandfather's time. Many of these hills had tin. Tin Valley ran dry, but when the age of steel rose, we stopped mining tin in such mines as still ran rich. Tin Valley had no iron. The Fahrer hearthome began mining and developed their fields, growing winter wheat, redberry, and clover."

"Barley or rye?" asked Tremaine, thinking of the cave.

"One does not grow barley or rye without permission," said Masseron, and his wife nodded sharply. "We checked those fields."

"But one could not check for grains at Winternacht," argued Tremaine.

"No, but we have checked regularly. Summersset before the harvest before we checked Tin Valley. They had no barley or rye."

Tremaine nodded and thought harder of the cave. They lapsed into a confrontational silence, broken when Tob unabashedly slammed his older brother in the head. Jrom fell off the bench and leaped to his feet swinging, only to be snatched up by Lady Tilde. She put both their ears back. Masseron looked aside to watch and then down to the ring where Wilkins was again grappling a highlander. Masseron's man was equal weight and lower, but Wilkins did some trickery with his legs that got him under the other. For a moment they heaved against each other, taking quick steps in circular patterns, and then Wilkins had his hip deep in the highlander's side. He slammed the local champion down. The crowd screamed, and Masseron roared obligatorily. Tremaine nodded to see Wilkins help the other up after the fall.

"The boys?" asked Masseron of his wife, sparing them a moment. "It does get late."

"It does," she admitted.

They shared another silent conflict, this one ending when Tilde rose and lead the children off, urging them in the direction of bed. Tremaine tried to ask another question, but Masseron said no more business while his wife was absent.

"Keeps peace in the house," he said with a shrug and asked of the low lands.

 

The party was going still going strong when Artissan crept out a side gate carrying a large pack. The blue-stagged guard glanced at her grey boar and said nothing. She gave some small thanks because he held the door, but otherwise they ignored each other. Once she was in the night outside, she avoided the window bars of light and stepped quickly until she got on the roadway. There was no hiding in the two miles of open pasture till the road climbed behind its first hill. The keep was still merrily glowing when she passed around the heavy foot of white-capped Omrigard, and up towards the path to Tin Valley.

Merrun jumped out of the shadows and almost startled her to death.

"You ass-goat!" she yelled and gasped for air.

"I heard you coming from down in the valley. I saw you out on the plains and heard you coming through the shadow. What? Still can't breathe with the popping he gave your nose?"

"What are you doing here?" Artissan demanded. She was winded and breathing through her mouth, but with the road in Omrigard's shadow, might as well have been a shadow herself. Her eyes were just starting to pick out lone trees. Merrun was a darker nothingness before the void of the forests, save for his voice.

"I'm going the same place you are. That still. Whatever it was chewed the gold and silver out of the coins and left all the steel, but it didn't find the still. The still was hidden. The lowlanders didn't think to look, Narn with his pride, Tremaine a noble and that rot, Wilkins chuffing at Tremaine's boots. That butcher had to hide his money somewhere, and I bet it's in that cave."

Artissan didn't say anything until she had her breath back, and then she just grumbled. "Maybe."

"Don't maybe me. It's where you're going. Tell me I'm wrong."

"Maybe."

"Maybe, nothing, you've got a shovel and a pick on your pack."

Artissan looked backwards like she was surprised a shovel and pick were indeed strapped to the outside of her pack. Then she scowled. 

"What do you intend to do about it?" she asked when her eyes had adjusted enough to establish Merrun was there and not some ghost with a stolen voice.

"I'll split it with you. I'm not keen on going into Tin Valley alone, but less keen on splitting it with the lowlanders. They might even report it to Masseron, and he'll take the whole pot. Half a pot's more than none. If you're useful."

"I've got a pick and shovel back here," she snapped and took a bubbling nose-breathe. She got a little air but not enough. She had to go back to mouth breathing like a lowlander. Merrun breathed easily, and it was the eight miles uphill to Tin Valley, hard work inside, and a long way out. "I've also got two bunches of wolvesbane, some grey mantle, fresh garlic, and a bit of holy water. I've also got a steel ring and a daisy chain I had the house madame's girl make me."

"A steel ring?" repeated Merrun, surprised. "On a maiden's daisy chain?"

"Not yet, but I've got them both."

"That's for hungry ghosts. Ghosts don't have a need of gold."

"They don't, but we both saw Wilkins come out of that house. There was something in there, something that didn't touch him under the sun, and we're going to Tin Valley in the dark. Narn went into the dark, and we see how he turned out. So I brought it all, everything I could."

Merrun thought hard, as hard as Artissan had a moment before. He didn't make any noise when he breathed, and she heard her own breath loud in her ears, no matter how she tried to silence it through her teeth.

"All right. Let's go. There's work to be done when we get there, and we'll make better time going slow than hurrying until you have to gasp. Call the stops. But don't call too many-"

"I know what we're doing," she interrupted him.

"Good."

Merrun swung a heavy pack up from his feet to his back, and she noticed he had a shovel as well. She also noticed he had an iron-gated storm lantern, and his back gurgled with oil bottles. 

Damn, thought Artissan. I should have brought lanterns too.

They trooped quickly up the high road to Tin Valley.

 

It was still a few hours to dawn when they got to the Tin Pass, a shaft cleft between the Mountains of Dawn that marked the edge of the lower Doon. On the other side of that cleft was Tin Valley, and the moon had set.

"Do you want to stop here and rest until morning?" asked Merrun, suddenly solicitous. They hadn't spoken three words since Omrigard.

"Time's wasting," panted Artissan.

"Yes, but just until dawn."

"I'm not that tired. I can keep going- Oh, just until dawn, is it?"

Merrun shrugged uncomfortably. "Just until dawn."

A silence stretched between them. Artissan cracked an evil smile, and her eyes twinkled in the dark until she was about to laugh. In that moment a high wind rushed down the mountain slopes, carrying with it the chill of glaciers under a sunless sky. The stars were brilliant diamonds skittering on black felt, and Aldeberaan twirled over the pass. The road lead straight up to it.

"Just until dawn," said Artissan. She wasn't laughing.

"Dawn."

"Sunrise."

Agreed, they climbed off the road, hid themselves in a crag, and waited out the darkness.

 

The sky flushed red, embarrassed that daylight pulled the blankets from the bed and revealed her to the world. The sun got around to rising, but hadn't yet summoned the motivation to rise beyond the mountains. He still puttered about in his bedroom. Artissan's legs belonged to some other person, some cold, tired, cramped person. She didn't envy her. Instead she urged Merrun awake. Her watch shift ended with lightening sky and spared her no additional time for rest. Merrun climbed over her and stumbled about to get feeling back in his own numb legs.

"I hate sleeping in caves," he muttered, setting to adjusting his woolens to somewhat comfortable for walking.

"Barely a cave."

"Close enough."

She climbed out of the divot herself and met the woman whose legs she had. That woman was not happy. Artissan stumbled as well. During the night she'd bunched up her inner trousers on the outside of her legs to cushion her against the harsh crag walls, and now she couldn't walk right. She and Merrun tried to ignore each other as they prepared for the day. A mountain stream provided shockingly cold water that refreshed and awoke them, but did not encourage ablutions. 

They entered Tin Valley with the sun, and nothing moved but the silent trees. White needles rustled in the morning wind. White fir needles were deep ocean green by the stem and gained their frosted appearance out towards the point. A forest of them looked like black fir that had been dusted by snow. Throughout the forest jutted up three sisters, barrel shaped trees with many heads. Counted by treetops one was likely to get twice or three times the number of trees counted by trunks at the root. There were no black fir in Tin Valley. The winters were too cold and the mountains too high. 

That would be why all the houses were brick or stone, thought Merrun. Black fir made the best lumber, and without it, with only the softer woods, the Fahrer family would have simply made bricks. They had the pastures, water, and clay for it.

Shadows of the eastern mountains crept down the west side of the valley as Artissan and Merrun sat outside the butcher's house. The shade fought against the dying of the night strongly at first but put to route soon vanished back into the mountain holes from whence it came. The sun finished his lazy exit of his bedchambers and got to work beaming over the world.

"Ready?" asked Merrun. He had filled his lamp, lit it, and prepared his tools and a hiding place for their packs. 

"Here," said Artissan. She gave him a clove of garlic on twine, tied sprigs of wolvesbane and grey mantle to his belt, and had put the daisy chain and ring around her neck. She waited while Merrun tied the ghost repelling herbs to her own belt. It wouldn't do to have tied her own herbs. Then she took a pick and he a shovel, and they entered the butcher's house.

Narn's bone pile lay undisturbed by the door. Cow skulls watched them pass.

In the kitchen, the dirt from the ruined oven had been spread about evenly by the night winds that stole in through the hole in the roof. It looked like no one had been here in years. The single tree poked its three heads up through the roof between thick shoulders of branches. Artissan thought it might be hunching down to watch them, but that was absurd. Among other reasons, trees didn't have eyes. While she was eyeing it back, Merrun dropped and crawled through the hole into the cavern beyond, and Artissan couldn't very well refuse to follow.

"I hate ghosts," Artissan grumbled.

"Ghosts aren't real," said Merrun.

"Shut up," said Artissan.

The cave within was an actual cave. That surprised her because she'd thought Narn had described a man-made hole as a cave because he didn't know better. He had been right. It was a natural chasm in the earth, widened and smoothed into a round antechamber that tightened into a narrow crack that plunged in the darkness beyond. The rock walls were wet granite, cool to the touch, but warm as the deep earth. Veins of mica ran sparkling through the dull brown stone out of the range of the lamp into the deeper shadows. Merrun stomped exploratorily on the wooden platform with the still and barrels, and it sounded firm.

Artissan flinched at the noise and looked like she wanted to scold him. He met her gaze in a flat challenge. She looked away.

The still was a three-vesseled brass thing with intricately twisted glass and metal tubes. Two of the balls sat on ovens for charcoal fires. The final glass spiral ended in a catch can with a bronze stopcock. Tapped, it swished. Merrun opened the stopcock a smidge to catch a drop of liquid on his finger and tasted it.

He nodded, impressed.

The grain barrels with their treacherous platform were upended and scattered, and lay against the walls where they had rolled. A low lip to the platform prevented any from tumbling down the crack. The explorers went at once to searching for other traps, and found two, a hinged platform that had rusted closed, and another barrel drop that rested on a thin sliver of wood. They chocked and pinned them, cleared up the barrels, and set to searching for loot.

They found a lot of fine aged whisky in stone jugs but no money. 

"Well?" asked Merrun.

"Well, I don't know. Why are you looking at me like that?" demanded Artissan.

Merrun looked away, and Artissan did too, and they stared around the dark chamber. Merrun gazed fixed into the raw cavern and lifted his light to illuminate it as he could. The change did nothing. It remained a narrow, unevenly floored vertical slit that wound into the mountain. Artissan looked at it, but found herself more concerned with the still area.

"Where does the smoke go?" she asked.

"What?"

"The smoke from the stills. These charcoal fires have to burn for a while, and they have to be tended. Where does the smoke go?"

"Uhh," Merrun stammered. "There's probably a vent or a hidden feed into the chimney."

"Light up the ceiling," she ordered, and they scanned the upper reaches of the cavern. "There's no smoke trail. Besides, feel the wind through the oven hole? It's blowing up out of the cavern."

"I don't hear that," said Merrun.

"You don't feel that?"

"I don't feel that."

"I feel it."

They had another stare off.

"It's blowing constantly, right? Not in and out, like breathing?" demanded Merrun.

"No! Why would you even ask that?"

"Because it had better not be!"

In the moments afterward echoes ran down the crack beyond, into the darkness under the mountain. Neither of them shushed each other, but they both stopped yelling immediately.

"Maybe we missed something," suggested Artissan in a soft whisper. "Let's search again."

Merrun nodded. "All right." They started over, checking the contents of each barrel, rattling them to listen for jingles, and poking at the cracks between the boards to see if crevices were unusually clean, like the boards had been frequently lifted and replaced. They worked for some time in tense silence when they heard shouting coming from the butcher's shop outside.

"You're going in there," yelled Tremaine in a voice full of his own importance and rank.

"No, I'm not!" yelled Wilkins in a voice full of you-can't-make-me. "I'll keep guard. You go in there."

"I'm giving you a direct order!"

"You can take that order, wrap it up in burlap, and shove it up your own cave mouth!" replied Wilkins. 

Merrun and Artissan froze, and shot panicked, demanding glances at each other, a silent fight, while the two redcloaks outside continued their louder vocal fight outside. The louder, angrier fight crescendoed until Lord Tremaine told Swordsman Wilkins that Wilkins was engaging in something very close to mutiny, and the outside fight got very careful and quiet.

"Now, what exactly do you mean by that?" whispered Wilkins, and Artissan realized they must be in the house. In fact, they must be in the kitchen, because the subtle rasp of metal on metal was a sword being loosened in its sheath. That sound wouldn't travel far.

There was a long reply as Tremaine considered his reply well.

Meanwhile, Merrun grabbed Artissan and pulled her down the long dark hole into darkness. She resisted, but there was no place else to hide. She looked to the other highlander, and he nodded towards the wall, his eyes carrying a silent prediction of murder.

The frozen silence consumed all four of them, both the two in the deep dark, and the two in the silent butcher's house. Tremaine and Wilkins were standing not ten feet away on the other side of the wall, and Wilkins stood with his back to the three sisters tree. The pillar of light from the broken roof painted his head and shoulders whereas Tremaine stood in darkness by the greater darkness of the hole behind the oven. In the kitchen the air smelled of growing pine. 

"Let's discuss this calmly," said Tremaine in a soothing voice. "We know there's a still back there. Narn and I both saw it. We know these mountain people tax their booze. Every thane has his own rules. But we can move it around since we're lowlanders, and none of the locals will search our belongings. They put a great importance on personal space up here, especially for strangers. Wilkins," No rank."-there's probably a fortune on the other side of that wall. All we have to do is go in and get it."

"What exactly did you mean by mutiny?" asked Wilkins, who was not soothed. "That's a hanging word."

"Forget I said that. Slip of the tongue. I mean you're engaging in something very close to throwing away a lot of very good money."

"Temaine," said Wilkins, also ignoring rank. "The locals don't take too kindly to smuggling. They like to hang people for that, and it strikes me as awfully funny you care to bring a hanging crime in Ashirak into a discussion about a hanging crime in the mountains."

"Forget I said that. Forget it. Swordsman, why don't you tell me why you're disinclined to go into the still chamber? Perhaps we can work all this out."

"I don't want to go into the dark. I don't know what's down there. You go. I'll stay out here and pack whatever you find onto the horses."

Inside, Merrun had relaxed and was no longer urging Artissan to hide further in the cave. She had not calmed. Instead, over the course of the exterior conversation, Artissan had gotten tenser until her arms and jaw were clenched. As Merrun let go of her arm, she put her hand firmly on his and motioned towards the deep dark cave. It curved not far from the still platform, and beyond there they would be well hidden. He looked at her and silently assented. For the first time they both realized his lantern was still gleaming brightly. He shut the storm vanes as fast as he quietly could, and in pitch subterranean darkness, lit by only deflected beams of deflected light that came from the hole over the sentinel tree, they scuttled down the cave mouth and beyond what would be in sight.

Tremaine's voice drifted through the hole in the wall while they hid. "Swordsman, that's a reasonable idea and a good one. However, it will take a while. We don't know where those two highland rats scurried off too. If we both go into the still, we can carry everything out faster. Besides, neither of us is ever alone with the loot this way. Certainty makes for trust, they say."

"I've heard that," muttered Wilkins.

"It's a good saying. You keep an eye on me, and I keep an eye on you. We're going into this together, so we can trust each other."

Wilkins muttered something indistinct.

"I'm sure that's a good point. So shall we go in?"

By now the two highland rats were around the corner, and they got comfortable. Neither of them could see anything in the darkness beyond, nor had their earlier exploration illuminated how deep the cave had gone. The passage was narrower, and even Merrun could feel the steady push of air headed for the outside.

"You first," said Wilkins.

"Surely. I'll go first."

There was a silence, and then the sound of brick getting kicked. Someone, Tremaine probably, whacked something and swore. The other grumbled. Those down the cave heard footsteps on the platform and saw a light blossom. It illuminated the elbow in the cavern, and some little reflected onto them, barely enough to cast shadows.

Merrun looked behind himself immediately and checked the further reaches. He couldn't see them. While the passage broadened into a chamber not a long stone's throw away, it tilted sharply down after that. The chamber walls carried even more mica, and spider-webs of gleaming silver rock traced complex patterns in the thin light from Tremaine's lantern. Bemused he left Artissan without her notice and crept deep into the cave.

There were some scrambling noises as Wilkins came through. He didn't hit anything, because he took a long time. His scrambles had neither Tremaine's motivation nor urgency.

"Come now, look around. There's nothing in here but barrels, and- wait, why are the barrels-" and Tremaine didn't finish.

There was a thud and a wet hiss. Tremaine gasped like the wind had been sucked from his lungs. Artissan shuddered, and her eyes went wide. She felt her hearing increase a thousandfold. Something fell, but it fell in pieces, a bit of a thump, then a louder thwack, and then a slow bang like a knee hitting wood when the knee was trying to stay upright. Another bang as the other knee landed by the first. A dying voice whispered, "You bastard-" and a second wet cutting noise sounded again.

"Me bastard? I am a bastard, you nob bastard, and you never let me forget it, but you bastard, you shouldn't have said mutiny. Why would you say mutiny? Why would you bring that up? If I'm risking a hanging taking whisky from the mountains to Ashirak, I'll damn well not walk into another hanging when I get there. How's that for mutiny? You want to talk mutiny? How's that for mutiny, you bastard? How's- what's that?" demanded Wilkins, and he stopped his furious babble.

Artissan had stopped breathing entirely to avoid breathing through her mouth, and in a moment of distraction she had forgotten to not breath. She had gasped..

She looked around in a panic and realized she was alone. Merrun had vanished. Her eyes shot back to the corner in the cave. The light was bright and firm, too firm to be carried. The lantern had been put down. But she couldn't hear anything, and she didn't hear Wilkins. She heard only her own breathing, thin mouth-breaths because she still couldn't breath through her swollen nose, and they sounded loud and panicky in the dark. The light on the cavern wall was very still. Maybe Wilkins was standing still and listening. Maybe he was creeping this way. 

Artissan looked for Merrun again, and realized he was deep in the cave, looking at the rock walls. She shot a terrified glance back towards the still and began climbing towards Merrun, trying to make no noise.

The cave wasn't round. It was two nearly vertical walls that met at the top and bottom with no flat pathway inbetween. There was a small bulbous cavity at the bottom where unknown eons of water had drained, but the walls pinched close above it. It had the silhouette of a slitted eye turned sideways. Artissan didn't have enough space for her legs to pass each other walking in the drainage area, leaving her to either shuffle forward or take slow, high steps with her feet going above the knee each time and having little space to avoid hitting the walls. She gave that up, and used her hands to lift, so she could scuttle by pressure against the walls. Even doing this the closeness of the stone inhibited her as well as her desire for silence, but Artissan was extremely motivated. She moved fast. She escaped to the wider chamber and hit in an exposed spot, protected only by a lack of mica veins that would otherwise give her away.

Still as the corpse wind the lantern lit up the cave mouth until suddenly it did not, and Wilkins peered around the corner with his short sword drawn. Half his face was in light, and the other an empty cutout against the rock walls. His shadowed eye gleamed in occulted silhouette. Wilkins was muttering to himself, and Artissan could make out "bastard" and "mutiny," and something about hanging. She didn't have anything to hide behind except the dark. 

Wilkins approached as she had. He was bigger, so he could put his shoulder against the wall and keep his sword in front of him, but he had the same problems moving. The subtle scritch of his mail on the rock, even through the surcoat, echoed loud. Wilkins made it to the chamber and waited, frozen and listening, as Artissan fought to keep her breathing more silent than his.

They waited a long time with nothing between them but Wilkins' sword. 

Then Merrun coughed, a short barking noise that echoed up the descent beyond. Wilkins jerked like a marionette, and his muttering grew feverish. This close Artissan could hear his whispers of mutinying against the bastard. He rushed past her to the far side of the chamber, where the cavern tightened again, and chased Merrun.

Artissan waited until he was gone and gave herself ten breaths of complete nervous breakdown. That was exactly all the time for panic she had. After that she crouched and thought of the bright way back, probably over Tremaine's corpse, or the dark path forward.

Merrun wore a white hawk, so one of Thane Dronnor's kin. Dronnor's land was close to Ashirak and made a fine profit on the merchandise that came up the Ashirai cleft in the East Escarpment. She and he had first met when both of them had gone to the Ashirai office of their lowland army, the Red Guard, looking for work. For good or ill, the lowlanders had the money. Tremaine had sought guides, and they'd taken paid service with him. Paid was a broad word. Of course Tremaine was dead. 

She was the fourth born of eight children to the Grey Boar Thane Brinnig's younger brother, who was himself third born behind Brinnig. Artissan was, she believed, nineteenth in line for Brinnig's chair. She'd gotten a warm and friendly upbringing in Brinnig's hall, and a swift kick towards the door the summer she passed twenty. She'd barely felt it because she had been running for the exit at the time. Thirty was entirely too many children in one house, albeit a thane's manse. So she had gone to the lowlanders with cap in hand for a job, and answered a series of nonsense questions about why she wanted that job without explicitly saying, 'because eating costs money.'

And now she had no reason what-so-ever to go down after Merrun. The smart money was leave him to whatever he found, or whatever found him. Their alliance wasn't one of loyalty.

She felt a push like a kiss against her heels, urging her towards the lantern, and that made her turn around, grunt and hiss, and start creeping in the exact opposite direction of where she should be going. She had thought that there was only so dark a cave could be, but with every inch the mica-carried light grew dimmer and the cave gloomier, as it sank into the earth. The cavern beyond had a better floor, and Wilkins stopped jingling his mail as he walked. She slunk after him.

The lantern quietly winked out. 

With walls close enough for her to touch both sides at the same time and Wilkins silent some distance ahead, Artissan slowed down to listen hard with every step. She couldn't hug one side to avoid him if he lurked in the center, because the center was only a shoulder's width from the wall. What unsettled her was the way her feet, once set to the downward path, hurried of their own accord. Twice she had to stop and demand herself stop running. She was trotting a third time, jogging on the balls of her feet while thinking about keeping her breathing down, when Wilkins smashed a pile of bones, and she froze before she crashed into his back.

"Bloody bones and mutineers," hissed Wilkins, and kicked a pile of bones again. 

Artissan didn't even blink.

His sword flicked a skull over. Teeth fell out and rattled on the ground. He kicked a femur over. It clacked against wet stone. Wilkins muttered again, something about hanged men, and a low voice hissed out from far ahead in the cavern.

"Now I know where you are," it sighed.

Wilkins, and his muttering, paused. That voice did not sound like Merrun. 

"And I know where you are," said Wilkins, sounding as lucid as he had back in the kitchen.

"Come see. Don't be shy," invited the raspy noise. "There are no locks."

"I've a key to open any lock," yelled Wilkins, and his sword whistled. 

"Ah, lowlander, you do indeed have a key. A great, big, powerful key, so sharp and shiny. Come in, come in."

"Yes!" yelled Wilkins. He paused. "Yes, yes, it is," he agreed, and sank once more into muttering. He was so close she could have reached out and touched his back. Wilkins kicked the bones out of his way and stomped forward, jingling with every pace and snarling under his breath. "Hanging for all the nob bastards," he whispered and went deeper into the dark.

Artissan did not remember deciding to follow him, but she did.

 

The cavern opened up into a great vault. Stalactites ribbed the ceiling, reaching down to sharp stone stakes. Beads of water hung on the lowest points. The stone formed mirroring forests on the floor and roof in subterranean reflection of the pine forests that filled Tin Valley above, receding into the further reaches out of sight. Mica and quartz glittered everywhere, casting more shade than light. Where the hanging stone met the standing, they formed ridged columns that were fluted with eons of erratic water paths. No two were alike.

In the center of the colonnade was a pile of gold and silver with stray coinage of copper and brass. Old bars of tin lay discarded among the heap. There was no iron or steel. On top rested the fleshless skull of a great dragon. It had been dead before the fangs of the roof met their mates on the floor, and time had stripped its bones of old flesh. Even the iron-hard scales were gone. Only the skull remained, and its eyes were the deepest pits of shadow in the chamber. Compared to them, the stygian darkness looked less dark.

Wilkins stumbled into the empty cave and looked around muttering, and Artissan, who had been creeping behind, had to dive for cover behind a stone. The Swordsman noticed the treasure pile and hissed. Artissan noticed the pile too and wanted to pur. The skull lay so it was looking at them.

Wilkins did not like the skull. Before taking one step towards the gold he glared at it and raised his blade to a guard. Both sides of his head were dark as the silhouette from the upper cave, and his eyes glittered like hard gems. His hands and feet might be those of ghosts. The sword was not. The steel blade was cleanly visible even in the shadow-light, and somehow the darkness of the dragon-skull eyes did not see it.

"Hello, old wyrm," muttered Wilkins.

"Brave, noble, glorious man. Welcome, welcome. I'm so happy you aren't shy," whispered the dead dragon.

"I've never been shy with the ladies before."

"Of course. Of course."

A peculiar pressure lifted from Artissan, and she began looking immediately for the way back. She was far enough inside that stone pillars blocked the entryway cave. Away from Wilkins, she noticed that there was a main avenue that ran to the skull's treasure horde, and outside it the stalagmites were thick enough to provide good cover. Staying low, she crept away from the center of the cavern back the way she'd come.

Merrun reached out of the darkness and firmly grabbed her shoulder, and for a second time almost startled her to death.

Without screaming or making any noise, she tried to kill him with a look. He waved at her to quiet down like her slashing fingers were a yell. She waved back. They had an utterly useless but animated exchange of furious gestures until almost identically they both stopped and listened.

Wilkins, who had been talking with the dry whisper of the skull, had said, "So where exactly are the people of Tin Valley?"

"Why they're right here. Around. You tripped over Mimsy the Mayor's wife on my doormat."

"Mimsy wasn't doing so well."

"Have some manners. She was looking young as she'll ever be."

"Right," muttered Wilkins coldly. "They and you seem like cold company."

"How can you say that? Come lie on my bed. Gold is the softest metal."

Wilkins approached. He had lowered his weapon to talk, but as he moved his reflexes swung the blade up before them again. The skull hissed and snarled. Wilkins froze and readied his sword to strike. The shadows of the cavern leaped and danced.

"Why don't you put that aside?" suggested the hiss.

"A Swordsman never leaves his weapon."

"Even in bed?"

"How else can I slay the ladies?"

"The ladies here need no slaying."

"They look a cold group. Perhaps I should go looking for warmer blood."

"Oh, don't. I insist."

Merrun's eyes were very wide, and they rolled sideways to Artissan, who was looking right back. They stared at each other. Artissan raised an eyebrow, asking for confirmation Merrun gave with a stark disbelieving nod. She nodded in recognition. Both doubled over to a crouch and spider walked away from the skull.

There was no entryway. First they came to two skeletons wrapped in each other's arms with their knives in each other's breasts, lying before long scratches in the stone from broken fingernails. Beyond a small pile of bones lay in a fetal position with its knees hugged to its chest. Outwards they found more, some as young as a few years and some so ancient they could not be dated, but all stripped clean of flesh. Every bit of tendon and cartilage was gone. One skull with rams horns jutting from the forehead lay alone, without even a spine or teeth, and at Merrun's touch it vanished into dust. The horns tumbled and thudded on the ground.

Wilkins heard it and stopped, for a moment, arguing with the skull. "What's that?"

"I heard nothing," said the skull.

"I did."

"Ignore it."

"Be silent!" yelled Wilkins and slashed his sword at the high skull. It screamed like steam escaping a pot. 

Artissan had been slinking in as straight a line away from them as she could, paused to look around the cavern and noticed unpleasantly that she was somehow on the other side of the avenue. Merrun, who should have been close at hand, was somehow very far away through tightly grown spires. She lifted her head just a bit and saw Wilkins looking in all directions. For a moment they made eye contact, even as she was ducking. 

Wilkins made no more noise, and Artissan began to fear.

"Where are you going?" demanded the skull.

Artissan's heartbeat thundered until she wondered why it didn't echo.

"There is nothing. I see everything. Where are you going? Get back here," snarled the dragon, but Wilkins didn't reply. 

When Merrun had made the noise, he froze, and hearing the one-sided diatribe between dragon and warrior, he moved fast in any direction away. Immediately he was out of sight of Artissan. She fought down panic and realized she hadn't moved either. Wilkins knew where she was. The highland woman picked a crack between two stalagmites to dive through, and found herself exposed on the broad avenue to the dragon's great skull and treasure.

She panicked. Wilkins, focused hard on a spot between the columns to the opposite side, walked off the avenue with his back towards her. 

Artissan looked to the great skull. There was nowhere to hide from the dragon now.

But the dragon didn't see her. The pulsing shadows of its eyes roamed the cavern, and some trickery of the light made the horde seem to spin so the dragon looked everywhere. She felt a tangible force as its gaze passed over her, and the blood in her fingers chilled. The dragon's gaze moved on. She looked down at the steel ring hanging on a daisy chain between her breasts. She looked up and saw the long avenue retreating into darkness where, presumably, the way out was.

Artissan had a moment of decision that almost killed her and went back into the stone forest looking for Merrun.

Wilkins' tall head occasionally peered above the stalagmites, but he moved too quickly. He would be on one side of her and a tense mouth-breath later on the other. Artissan was getting better at breathing silently, and she fought the urge to gulp air like it was panic. The dragon skull brooded in silence on its horde, or her horde as Artissan was beginning to think, and the short woman from Brinnig's halls kept rocks between herself and her/it.

"Oy, lowlander!" yelled Merrun out the shadows. His voice echoed through the columns and at the same moment he stood tall on a broken fang of rock. It had tumbled from the ceiling eons ago, and the white hawk perched on it long enough to grab everyone's attention. "You know she's lying to you, right?"

He was down again in an instant. 

Artissan stopped breathing entirely and waited. She heard something, a dry hiss like wind being sucked in between dry teeth, and the old bones murmured, "Rats. Rats in my boudoir."

"I told you," muttered Wilkins. "I told you all. When Tremaine bragged about his family, when he bragged about his father and his rank, when he bragged, oh, I told him. I told him about mutiny too, in the end. I told him." 

The Swordsman stalked past her, his mail less than jingling, barely even crunching as he placed one foot outside the hole she hid in. He settled onto his toes and waited. Fear, old fear, covered her like arae guiva on the Cathak Tarn, and her lungs screamed for air while she couldn't breathe. Wilkins crouched. The world began to swim around her, drifting in and out outside the cavern of her vision. Her last conscious thought was that once she passed out, she was going to gasp, and he would find her then.

So she stabbed him. Right in the heel with the knife she didn't know she'd drawn, Artissan jagged the razor point in and sawed through his tendons like she was cutting fabric. The excellent Brinnig-steel knife cut flesh as if it was falling into water. 

"Mutiny!" he screamed and fell. His legs crumpled like broken sticks. Artissan tried to run, but he snatched her coat on the way down. Arrested, she was nearly jerked backwards off his feet and some power sped his sword hand into her butt. She didn't even feel it. Wilkins, on his back, crawled at her, and she thrashed to get get free. 

"Bastards!" and "Rats!" screamed madmen and dragons. Wilkins seized her knife hand and she grabbed his sword arm, and they rolled through the maze of the cavern. Their blood trails crisscrossed around standing fangs and boulders. But Wilkins was bigger and long trained in a brutal school. His eyes flashed nothing but fury and he babbled indiscriminately. Once he got on top, he posted out his good leg to stop her from rolling, and put his weight behind the sword. It ached to fall on her head.

Merrun pounced from behind and smashed Wilkins in the head with a rock. The Swordsman dropped, but then Merrun had to stop Artissan from stabbing him when he was down.

She demanded, "Why?" with her eyes.

Instead of answering, he pointed at his eyes. He blinked twice at her, and then deliberately reached out and put his hand over hers. 

In darkness, pure darkness and not the cast shadows of malice, she heard the whisper of wind blowing through the cave and the irregular drop of condensation falling. She also heard Merrun barely breathe, "Because live bait catches more fish than dead."

With their eyes closed they dragged him to the windy avenue, a straight shot to the broad pathway. The dragon screamed and put its will against them. They felt resistance, and Wilkins gained in weight. He weighed in eons and guilt, and fought to wake up, hissing in his sleep. Any lesser pressure and he would, but the dragon was relentless. The highlanders were relentless too and carried him to the horde.

They dumped him in, and the evil muttering stopped. Wilkins gasped, weakly, and his mouth formed words. They withered in his mouth. Merrun took Artissan and put her arm over his shoulder as she suddenly realized she'd been stabbed too. She wait, and grabbed his hand to point towards a far wall where the wind blew outwards, relentless and unstoppable, and not at all like breathing. They stumbled out into the lesser but natural dark.

Behind them, Wilkins whimpered, "No. No." His cries softened and died until he was just a hint of bad memories in the wind.


End file.
